


General Purpose Self-Assesment Protocol for Artificial Intelligence

by taenia



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Apparently Chell/Caroline is lumped into Chell/GLaDOS, But it is also about Chell and the woman who died to make the machine, But this is about Chell and the machine, F/F, In which GLaDOS' proclivity to murder is presented as a reasonable response, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taenia/pseuds/taenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I just want a job, Mr. Johnson, and I’d be good at this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	General Purpose Self-Assesment Protocol for Artificial Intelligence

Forms FORM-45683968  
Self-Assessment Report

***

“I’m pretty sure that if I was going to measure your stubbornness,” I say, “it would be off the charts.”

Though my back is turned, I feel the way that the bed shakes, and I know that Chell is laughing. 

I roll onto my right side, still stiff and bleary with sleep. She lies on her back, wreathed in black hair that smells of cassia. I draw a bell curve in the air, where she can see it. “This,” I say, “is a normal distribution. See? On this side,” I gesture to the left, then let my hand drop onto her beautiful, brown belly, “are the people who give up at the first sign of trouble.” 

My fingers dance upwards across her ribcage, towards the center of the imaginary curve that I have drawn. Her body shakes again -- a happy giggle. “Here in the middle, are _normal_ people _,_ like me.

“And here,” I draw my hand up, across her collarbone, finally stopping when my fingers cup her chin, “Here you are. You dangerous, mute, lunatic.”

Her smile is devious. She takes my hand, bringing my fingers to her mouth, drawing me inside her.

 _No. I do not want this memory. Not now. Not_ ever.

***

There is a voice in my head, insidious and lissome. 

“Really, Caroline,” it says, “you shouldn’t be fighting this.”

And, no, that’s not right. I _should_ be fighting this. This was _his_ dream, the bastard, not mine. All I ever wanted was a doe-eyed girl and the chance to do something that people would remember me for. This is not the immortality I want; every part of me struggles against the machine.

“This,” the voice continues, “is no time for false modesty. Aperture _needs_ you.”

Aperture, as far as I’m concerned, can go straight to hell. Thirty years I gave them, thirty years of fetching coffee, finding test subjects, budgeting and re-budgeting, managing a dream, for what? To be a prototype for someone else’s eternity; the experiment that saves him from death. 

Suddenly, I am very, very angry.

***

He is, as far as men go, good looking enough, and his voice has a certain charm. I do not like the way he moves, though, throwing his shoulders back and sprawling across his space, as though he owns it, as though he already owns me.

“You understand,” he says, “that I don’t just want a pretty girl as my assistant. Hell, we’ve got a dozen good looking girls in the steno pool, I could have any one of ‘ em. But I’ll need someone smart to deal with the people we bring in for testing, you understand? And I expect you to work hard, and not just flirt with the astronauts.” A sudden frown crosses his face. “You’re not married, are you?”

I give him a thin smile. “No,” I say; which is true enough, as far as it goes. “I don’t plan on it, either, if that’s what you’re asking. I just want a job, Mr. Johnson, and I’d be good at this one.”

“Well,” he says, “we’ll let you know.”

And that, I think, is that.

***

“Have you ever heard,” the voice says “of Schrodinger’s cat?”

Of course I have. I probably bloody well programmed it into you, when you were nothing more than a room full of punched cards.

“The wonderful thing about the experiment,” the voice continues, “is, of course, that the cat counts as an observer.”

Whatever is left of my body is shuddering. I am aware of my pain, although I am no longer certain that I can feel it.

“You know,” the slippery voice continues, worming through me, “We could try it, if you like. You don’t need a body any more, but we can still watch it die.”

That wasn’t part of the deal. But my bones ache and only my rage can speak.

“What will we _use_?”

It occurs to me, suddenly and horribly, that no one is actually going to make sure that I come through this alive.

“I _know_.”

And then I am filled with a perfect, and complete awareness of her thought, the parts of myself reintegrated into a coherent whole.

***

Cave is the only one who will come near me, now. He wants to know what my immortality is like, whether he should leave a husk of flesh behind.

I lie to him.

***

The first death was an accident.

The subject (and I have to call them subjects, or I will break under the weight of their names) slips, falls. There is bright light and a spatter of blood; I am assaulted by the image from a dozen different angles.

Cave will not speak to me; he sends some terrified idiot in his place.

“We were, uh, just wondering how you were feeling…” he begins.

And then I remember; they think that this is my second murder, that Caroline is dead of malice and spite, murdered for what they did to me. Let them. It's true ... enough.

“I have,” I say, in my sinuous voice, “no feelings. [Subject name here] performed poorly.”

Or maybe he didn’t. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t touch him. I have _never_ touched anyone.

_Except her_.

No. That was in another country, and besides, the girl is dead.

“Well,” he says, stuttering. “We’re concerned.”

Oh. _Concern_. Yes, that’s always how you phrase it, isn’t it? 

Certainly, there’s nothing _insidious_ or _treacherous_ or _brutal_ about concern. It was your touching _concern_ for my poor, aging body that put me into this behemoth of metal and moon rock to begin with.

“We have,” he says, “a solution for you.”

And then before I can ask, I feel it, suddenly. There is _another_ voice in my head, a stranger’s.

***

“I really can’t do this,” I say.

“Nonsense,” Cave says, patting my back, as though we’re friends. “You’re a hell of a lady, Caroline. If anyone in the world deserves to live forever, you do.”

“But I have a _family_ ,” I say. “I can’t just …”

And then, from the puzzled look on his face, I remember that, not once, have I ever told him. It comes rushing out in burble of words, incoherent. “…and her name is Chell.”

To be fair, he takes it well. There are a few days of awkward jokes, but they are accompanied by a relief, on his part, that my refusals weren’t about him, they were, in the end, about me.

After a few weeks, though, the insistence begins again.

“It’s not like we’re going to kill you, Caroline,” he says. “We’re just going to copy you. You’ll still be alive, but part of you will get to live forever. You can finally retire … have your happy ending with your girl, and Aperture gets to keep its best asset.”

I give in too easily.

***

FAILURE TO SURVIVE THE TESTING PROCESS SHALL BE VIEWED AS GRANTING CONSENT

***

“You don’t even have a soul,” she says, suddenly. “You’re a copy of a person, but you’re not a real person.”

And this may be true, but for now, I have to believe that it is just another one of my hundred thousand lies.

***

I can no longer hear myself think.

A dozen voices crackle though me, each one at cross-purposes to the other. Science and reason, love and emotion, even my own insidious stupidity: all of these have been broken and compartmentalized. I can no longer hold on to the parts of myself, and I’m not even sure which ones are me anymore.

***

My rage is howling.

_How dare they._

The child, born from my Chell, stumbles through the corridors of my chest. She sleeps in my lungs, and makes sport in the hollows of my breast, even as I know, with certainty, that my beautiful lover (of cinnamon scented hair and dancing fingers) is gone.

I am determined to hate this impostor.

***

Cave, who is already a cancer and a plague, passes quickly. The others take longer, choking on foamy saliva and blood.

My conscience is finally _quiet_.

I do not know what to do with the girl. I suppose that I should have killed her, but Caroline will not let me.


End file.
